I idly stare up at the glowing white ceiling while idly eating the vanilla pudding that came with my lunch. This honestly isn’t all that bad, to be honest. I’ve got regular meals, a sort-of-comfortable bed, fresh water, clean toilet, air conditioning, and all the peace and quiet I can ask for. Okay, there’s also the soul-crushing boredom, but it wouldn’t be much of a jail cell if it didn’t have some downsides.

Two-Five seems to be handling his incarceration rather awkwardly though. He’s in the cell opposite mine, and I can clearly see him through the MaxiPane Sunglass™. I still can’t get used to how he looks without his helmet, though. I expected his head to be the shape of a short and fat T, but I didn’t expect him to have no eyes. Or a nose, for that matter. His face is just smooth, dark blue skin with no features other than the square jaw at the bottom end of it. No hair, either.

He can still see, though, given that he responds whenever I use the navigator’s sign language. I’d like to ask him how his face works, but the vocabulary of our hand signals is way too limited. We can also hear each other, but speech is pointless without auto translators. Which is a shame, because I’m kind of concerned about him. He hasn’t been himself ever since he was put in there. He keeps either pacing around or pressing the vast expanse that is his forehead against the MaxiPane Sunglass™. Pretty worrying behavior for a species that doesn’t even have the word ‘bored’ in their language.

Ah, come to think of it, the cause for this all must be that he was brought back to earth in a Capture-Cube 6000™. Those jerks in the power armor had to bring down his causality field to do put him in one of those things and they haven’t allowed him to bring it back up. The foreign laws of physics are probably playing havoc on his nervous system. Especially whatever he has that passes for ears. From what I can gather, orizians seem really sensitive to sounds and vibrations, so being taken out of his comfort bubble must be uncomfortable as hell.

“Ahem!”

I want to reassure him, so I clear my throat to get Two-Five’s attention and sign at him to say that there’s ‘evac in six hours,’ and he responds with a twitchy ‘requesting clarification.’ Yeah, explaining that is going to be tricky under these circumstances. I know it’s been two days already, but it’ll take time for Internal Affairs department to finish examining the data recorded by my helmet and instrumentation. Once they do, they’ll surely understand us being at that secret blacksite was pure coincidence. For real, how were we supposed to know the One Earth Government’s experimental science division uses the same uniforms as those religious nutjobs? I didn’t even know the OEG had something called an ‘experimental science division’ until after we were arrested!

Thankfully we didn’t kill anyone, just broke a few toys due to a misunderstanding. There’s zero incriminating data to suggest any malice in our actions. The most they can do is detain us for a period of up to sixty hours like they’re currently doing, after which they either have to press charges or let us go. And the government wouldn’t dare do the former since it did a terrible job of announcing its presence and authority. Not to mention they’d have to publicly admit to owning an off-world secret facility, which is in direct violation of the Non-Colonization Act of 2284.

What the big shots really wanna do is sweep this under the rug and pretend it didn’t happen, which is going to be tricky for them if they raise a stink. Thankfully they can’t just straight up get rid of Two-Five and I. Both the Breach Management Agency and the One Earth Government are heavily reliant on independent backers and investors. The type of people that will surely ask questions if the two navigators - one of whom is a guest from another dimension - suddenly go missing following a Priority 2 alert. The paper trail is far too big for the BMA or the OEG to cover up without causing more trouble than it’s worth.

Therefore, the only remaining options is that either everyone agrees to pretend this entire thing didn’t happen, or we start prosecuting and suing one another until our balls fall off. The situation is basically one of mutually assured destruction. Okay, maybe ‘destruction’ is too strong a word, but that’s the phrase my legal counsel used when she explained this clusterfuck to me. And I’m glad she put it in a way that even a grunt like me can understand. I’m way too straight-laced to play this game of corporate politics.

Therefore, when the strict lawyer lady tells me I just need to shut my mouth and rest my butt in custody for two and a half days, that’s precisely what I’m going to do. Unfortunately, Two-Five is completely in the dark about all this. He didn’t get the benefit of legal representation, mostly because his people don’t have an embassy on Earth. And with his homeworld being at least nine transfers away, it’ll be at least a week before they even find out he’s been jailed, assuming they catch wind of this fiasco at all.

I hear a number of heavy footsteps walk towards us from the end of the hall and go press my face against the MaxiPane Sunglass™ of my cell. I see four guards, some guy in a fancy uniform, and, most importantly, my lawyer. She is a sight for sore eyes, and not just because of the way her tight skirt and fancy jacket emphasize her striking figure. Her being here means the powers that be have realized that holding us the full sixty hours is just a waste of everyone’s time and resources.

Two-Five also seems to have noticed the disturbance and starts twitching even more than normal, so I gesticulate ‘all clear’ and ‘situation normal’ to calm him down.

“Well,” my attorney crosses her arms. “Seems your boss managed to whine his boss into letting you out a bit early. Something about how you’re enough of a drain on the agency’s resources even without it having to pay for your food and board.”

“Gee. And here I thought old Jameson cared,” I shrugged.

“Hmm, yes, quite,” the officer next to her grumbled. “As Ms. Freeman implied, you and your gunner are to be released immediately. However, Internal Affairs have informed me you are to remain on-planet until they fully conclude their investigation into your incident.”

Great, which means I’ll be out of commission for a week, if I’m lucky. Months if I’m not.

“Your personal effects are hereby returned to you, and you are to clear out of the facility within fifteen minutes,” the guy added.

He presses a few buttons on his tiny remote, causing both mine and Two-Five’s cell walls to slide down. His goons then leave plastic bins with our respective stuff next to each of us.

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

I try to be polite, of course. He’s just doing his job and has nothing to do with me being in here, so jumping down his throat over this would be pointless. Entertaining, but pointless. He takes his guards and leaves the area, no doubt intending to give us some privacy. My lawyer has no such plans, however, as she sits there and watches me with a cocky smile. She’s doubtlessly looking forward to watching me change right in front of her.

“Don’t get shy, now,” she says teasingly. “It’s not like you have anything that I haven’t seen before.”

“Uh-huh. You know this technically constitutes sexual harassment, right?”

“What are you going to do? Sue me?”

I roll my eyes and decide to get this over with. She watches intently as I slide out of the white pajama-like shirt and pants that pass for prison clothes and start putting on my navigator’s uniform. I watch out of the corner of my eye as Two-Five does the same, no doubt eager to get his causality field back up. As for me, I feel that woman’s gaze burn into the back of my head, so I end up hurrying as well. I’ve just put on my hat-decorated helmet and am about to pull on my coat when I finally notice that her eyes are not thirsty, but concerned.

I don’t even need to guess what she’s about to say.

“How long are you going to keep doing this to me, John? You can’t just keep dragging me into your life like this.”

Yup. It’s that talk, alright.

“Look, it was urgent, and I needed a lawyer,” I say flatly. “And you’re the best damn lawyer I know.”

“Oh, yeah, sure, I bailed you out this time, but one of these days you’ll be stuck in there for life. Or worse!”

“For fuck’s sake, Karen. Can’t you be please be more professional about this?”

“No, I fucking can’t, John! God damnit, I wish you were just another idiot client of mine, but you’re not! I care about you!”

“… I know.”

“Then why do you keep putting yourself through this?!”

“Because someone has to.”

An awkward silence descends as I straighten out my coat’s lapel and Karen just stares at me, shaking her head in disbelief.

“I guess I missed my chance,” she finally says. “I should’ve talked some sense into you while you were still John Abbott. But no, once that helmet goes on, ‘Navigator Seventeen’ just takes the damn wheel.”

She then turns on her heel and storms off while I just stand there and silently watch her leave.

What am I supposed to say, though? I’m a workaholic, I admit it. The kind of stubborn scumbag that can’t even give the woman in his life the attention she deserves. There’s always one more assignment, one more ‘lost soul in need of a navigator.’ I put the wellbeing and happiness of strangers from other worlds ahead of my own, and this is the result. Funny, really. If my twenty year old self could see me ignoring a phenomenal woman like Karen just so I can go jumping through breaches, he’d probably kick me in the nuts. And I’d deserve it, too.

But, at the end of the day, this job is just far too important to me.